Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: Where do you get yours? (Food…, in reply to Islander,
-not illegal here! Freely available as a dried ingedient- cheers!
Please tell me that's an answer to my 花椒/huājiāo/prickly ash/numbing 'pepper' query. Although I basically disagree with its use in food (back in Hunan (where I spent my first year in China) we go straight spicy with no numbing, and damn, do you get one hell of a rush from that), used in moderation it certainly can add a certain extra frisson to the flavour. And far more importantly, my wife loves it.
But are you sure this doesn’t deserve a book?
I suspect this certainly does deserve at least a book.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours? (Food…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Thanks, Russell and Sofie. If Winnie's complaining then something good must be happening.
Logically, I thought there must be plenty of Asian shops in Auckland, I just don't know Auckland at all and didn't know where to start looking for them. Now one fear has been soothed, and in a Muttonbirdy kind of way, just remember Dominion Road.
Next mission: Longjing tea. I've managed to find some the last couple of times I've been in NZ, but only of the adequate variety. Whereas here I just walk 10 minutes to the nearest branch of Wuyutai and I've got 3 liang (150g) of good Longjing for 30 yuan (100 yuan/jin). And other teas, too. I'm currently refreshing myself with a nice (for a supermarket tea) Pu'er - beautiful red stuff from Yunnan. It's really hard to beat a nice Renshen Wulong or Tieguanyin (the Iron Goddess of Mercy - a very suitable name) for an afternoon pickmeup.
And I wonder if 花椒/huājiāo/Chinese prickly ash (the dictionary says) - that numbing Sichuan 'pepper corn' - is available. I've heard it's illegal in some places. I don't think my wife would want to contemplate life without it.
I have contemplated taking our soy milk machine back with us, but then again, moving to NZ will lose us one big advantage of living here. My parents in law are farmers, and it's really nice to be able to get soy beans, millet, corn, apples, etc straight from the people who grow them and who have a vested interest in our continued health. Really really nice when you live in a country of constant food safety scandals.
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I read this:
an entire aisle of slow-moving Chinese products that nobody buys.
and I thought, "Keep that store open! Cos when we get back (and Auckland is our destination of choice) then we're going to need Chinese products!" But then I read an article in yesterday's Herald about Aucklanders feeling a bit uncomfortable about immigrant businesses with signs in their own languages and no English translation (Dominion Road was named, I think), and that's fine with me so long as some of those signs are in Chinese.
Fanciest shopping we've got around my way is a rather mediocre branch of Carrefour. It's alright and does a reasonable selection of imported goods (250g blocks of Mainland cheese for about 30 yuan/NZ$ 6 - no, I don't buy that often), and has even started stocking NZ wine now that the tarriff is zero - it's still a lot more expensive than the Aussie, French, Italian, American, South African and South American wines, though. But it's very reliable for half litre cans of Greene King IPA, Abbott Ale, and maybe one or two other brews from the some English brewer at 10 to 14 yuan each ($2 - $3), which is pretty good pricing for imported brews, really.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Chinese product without Chinese pricing?
May well be, cos last time I got glasses it took two to three hours.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to Lilith __,
The disadvantage with astigmatism is the lenses cost a fortune. When I got a new prescription last year it was almost $400 to re-use my existing frames!
Unless you live where I do. There are two huge optometry markets 10 minutes walk from my place. I've bought a few pairs of glasses and prescription sunglasses there and never paid much more than 300 yuan (yuan:NZ$ is roughly 5:1) per pair, neither top nor bottom of range, including eye tests. That's one thing I'm really going to miss about leaving China (but my daughter's education is a higher priority than cheap stuff).
Got my first pair of glasses at 15. I was about to write I'd just started 5th form, but that doesn't make much sense, must've been 4th form and I was studying the Road Code to get my learner's licence, but realised that in our poorly-lit science classroom I couldn't read the blackboard without borrowing a friend's glasses. I thought perhaps if I'm having trouble reading the blackboard I might like to get my eyes tested just in case somebody decided I couldn't see well enough to drive, so I told my parents. The optometrist said I only needed glasses in particular situations like class or driving at night. But then, like others here, I had that, "Wow, I can see!" moment.
Then in my first year in Beijing so many of my friends got so frustrated with my inability to see them at dusk or after dark if they were more than a few metres away I decided to go get my eyes tested again and I discovered the joy of Chinese optometry - cheap but quality glasses available almost anywhere.
What I don't understand is how my daughter, despite having a short-sighted mother and short-sighted astigmatic father can apparently see quite long distances and doesn't seem to have any problems up close either.
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Hard News: Where do you get yours?, in reply to chris,
Yeah, and the smack of wooden chesspieces on a wooden chessboard with the player doing his best "Take that!" pose, only for the game to go on another half hour. Meanwhile, in the background you hear a couple of people practicing their erhu and others singing Chinese opera. China strikes me as a great place to retire.
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I've been wondering over the weekend if some of the really ugly sounds some Beijing birds make are connected to the constant rumble of traffic punctuated by the large bangs and crashes of demolition, construction, and, occasionally, fireworks. But out the window I can hear quite cheerful chirping.
But then again, one of the things I've always liked about China is how the elderly can be seen everywhere either chasing after their grandkids or sharing in various passtimes, and as well as Chinese chess and cards and raising pigeons, many elderly Chinese men like raising songbirds, and they often take their birds out for walks - yes! - you see them carrying their birdcages down to the local park or whichever greenspace, perhaps even just a corner of a road, and hanging their cages up in the trees, and while their birds happily sing to each other and swap songs and they chat or play cards or chess. So even among all this constant noise they manage to keep their birds singing beautifully.
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Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Lilith __,
Now that my wife is home and I can write more than the occasional quick sentence...
It is strange and troublesome that people who would not normally defend moral relativism defend things in their holy book that most modern folk would deem to be completely immoral and utterly abhorrent by pleading "product of their time and place". So all the law that Abraham knew was blind faith in and unflinching obedience to God...
I take some comfort in the knowledge that anybody threatening to kill their own child today would be locked up for a long time and given the treatment they need. 'Tis also nice to hear this 'progressive revelation of God' and look at history and see that for all our 2 steps forward, 1 step back, 3 steps sideways, and the occasional drunken stagger, our species has generally tended to progress from 'nasty, brutish and short' to at least a veneer of civilisation and gentility.
Still, even the very short span of this century so far has thrown up plenty of evidence that we're never more than a couple of steps from total barbarity. I could go on, but I fear I might finally convince myself to disappear up a mountain and go feral, ancient Daoist poet-style.
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Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
I do what makes a difference, what helps others – If what was just makes ME feel better, I’d be out there, hunting whalers-
My turn to add a +1000
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Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
I vote for feed them while demanding government live up to its responsibilities.
Yeah, like that'll happen with this crowd in power.